CIA's al Qaeda interrogation tape destruction raises concerns

Ron Edmonds, APIn this Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 photo, White House Counsel Harriet Miers is interviewed by The Associated Press in her office in the White House in Washington. White House counsel Harriet Miers was "livid" and CIA counsel John Rizzo was "clearly upset" that the spy agency destroyed interrogation videos showing waterboarding in 2005, newly released CIA documents show.
Ninety-two video tapes in the CIA's hands had proof of harsh interrogations of two al Qaeda detainees. They were destroyed in 2005. Now, it’s raising red flags within the CIA over whether it was cleared to do so.

Porter Gross, the then-CIA chief, believed that the videos would provide enough proof to show that the CIA had followed protocol and guidelines for interrogations, a former U.S. intelligence official told CNN. Therefore, he did not authorize the destruction of them.

A memo was released during this time frame and under the Bush-era stating that interrogators used the waterboarding technique to Zubaydah 83 times in August 2002, the same year that the videos were created.